Thomas Stafford was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1842. After first immigrating to Canada, he moved to Alpena, where he married Elizabeth McDougall, and they raised nine children, with many descendants still living in the area. Stafford worked during Alpena’s great lumber era of the 1800s as general manager for F.W. Gilchrist, one of Michigan’s earliest pioneering lumbermen, and he ran Gilchrist’s entire operation for almost 30 years. The Gilchrist Mill stood at the mouth of the Thunder Bay River from 1869 until its whistle blew for the last time on December 11, 1912, continuing until it ran out of steam, and F.W. Gilchrist died the following day on December 12. Between 1869 and 1912, the mill cut over 800 million board feet of lumber, about one fifth of Alpena’s 4 billion board feet. Stafford died long before his wife, but the site remained the family homestead for more than 66 years. The City of Alpena bought the park land from the Grace Gilchrist Fletcher estate in 1977, and after community donors initiated the dog park, the Stafford family made a substantial donation in Thomas Stafford’s name to add amenities and support future maintenance.